The rights of young people living in Scotland must be upheld, respected, and taken into account by our nation’s decision-makers, and the Scottish Youth Parliament’s campaign, Right Here, Right Now, fought to do just that.
This campaign was successful in gaining confirmation that the UNCRC will be fully incorporated into Scots law by 2021.
SYP’s 2016-21 youth manifesto, Lead the Way, which received more than 70,000 consultation responses, found that 76 percent agreed that:
‘The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) should be fully incorporated into Scots law, and the rights of children and young people should be protected and promoted’.
As a result, Right Here, Right Now will work to ensure that Scotland’s young people are aware of and understand their own rights, and are empowered to take action to defend their own rights and those of others.
Furthermore, Right Here, Right Now calls for Scotland’s decision-makers to take a human rights-based approach to all policy-making, service provision, and planning, ensuring young people’s voices are at the heart of decisions affecting them.
Rights Outright: SYP’s Brexit Manifesto
Rights Outright: SYP’s Brexit Manifesto has been developed as part of Right Here, Right Now. SYP is campaigning for young people’s rights to be defended during the Brexit negotiations. We identified five rights-based priorities as being of the most importance to young people.
Rights Outright: SYP’s Brexit Manifesto PDF0 kB
If you would like to know more about the consultation, or the other five statements which were consulted on, please contact SYP’s Public Affairs and Policy Manager, Laura, at laura.p@syp.org.uk.
Brexit Advocacy Toolkit
As part of the Right Here, Right Now national campaign on young people’s rights, SYP felt that it was essential to have an objective to defend young people’s rights during the Brexit negotiations: to influence law, policy and practice in order to strengthen the protection of young people’s rights.
In this advocacy toolkit, the External Affairs, UK and International Committee (EXA) will explain the clear aims and objectives of this toolkit and what they hope to achieve from these. It also includes analysis of the data which was drawn from the consultation conducted before SYP’s 64th National Sitting at the Scottish Parliament in October 2017, in addition to questions that will be put to our decision-makers based on findings.
The EXA Committee hopes that through this advocacy toolkit, they accurately represent a snapshot of the views of Scotland’s young people during this period of uncertainty.
Brexit Advocacy Toolkit PDF958 kB
The Young People’s Rights Review
The Young People’s Rights Review was an event held in Edinburgh’s Dynamic Earth on 18th April 2018. This event was a chance for MSYPs to ensure young people’s voices were at the heart of the Scottish Government’s Action Plan on Children’s Rights, Progressing Children’s Rights in Scotland 2018-2021. The forward-looking part of the Scottish Ministers’ 2018 report under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. Other related engagement activities included two Ministerial Rights Road Trips in on 4th and 5th December 2017 and the annual meeting of children and young people with the Scottish Cabinet on 6th March 2018.
At this unique and unprecedented coproduced event, around 27 MSYPs spoke in front of 3 Cabinet Secretaries, 5 Scottish Ministers and around 30 Scottish Government officials on a range of rights issues affecting children and young people in Scotland including: rural isolation, financial support for young carers, and climate change.
Inspired by the UN’s Universal Periodic Review process, MSYPs used UN recommendations to back up their own consultation-based calls to the Scottish Government – linking local, national and international human rights monitoring in a unique way as human rights defenders.
YPRR Recommendations Summary PDF390 kB
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Their recommendations are summarised here, and an easy-read version is available here.
Former Chair Suki Wan who chaired the event said:
‘Greater participation opportunities such as this are the future of children and young people’s rights, and I hope that the strategic approach to participation referenced in the Scottish Government’s Action Plan will ensure participation is well-resourced, sustainable and can flourish beyond the Year of Young People 2018.’
You can watch all the speeches in full on our YouTube channel here.
